Yeah like anyone in the Twin Cities reads this.
But I need to do a better job of bragging on all the brilliance in my family such as my sister Cathy Wright. Studied dance at the University of Utah (no kidding) then after a few years returned to Apple Valley High School not as student but as teacher of dance. She of course was brilliant as such for years – despite all the rubbish she had to endure thanks to No Child Left Behind and incompetent/dishonest administrators.
Because of budget cuts she is taking a “sabbatical” (read – can no longer afford to teach there and is trying to figure out what comes next). But even before that she was becoming increasingly involved in choreography and productions outside of th school. Reviews of her work have been universally positive:
Wow. Where did Cathy Wright come from? And do her colleagues at Apple Valley High School run and hide, or flatten themselves against the wall, when she walks by? One has to ask, because if her dark, ritualistic work “Return” is any indication, she’s “into some seriously heavy s**t” (as one of her high-school students might say). And we’d all better pay attention, because it’s good. Intriguing. Weird. Fantastical. Creepy, even. But good.
(Heh – that was complimentary right?) Check out her propaganda page at MNArtists.Org.
Recently got word of a show “Admittance: An Evening in Seven Parts” this December 04-07 at the Ritz Theater in Minneapolis:
Bush Fellowship Composer Matthew S. Smith presents an evening-length production, engaging choreographers Deborah Jinza Thayer and Cathy Wright in a work combining dance, film, and music. Set in the fear-laden atmosphere of the Cold War 1950s, at a time when the government was denying the effects of nuclear testing on its own soldiers, ADMITTANCE imagines the layers of trauma and denial in a family stunned by a mother’s schizophrenia and institutionalization. Paired with Thayer’s unique movement vocabulary and Wright’s arresting choreographic urgency, ADMITTANCE features Smith’s layered electro-acoustic score, weaving sound and bodies into a space where detonations obscure or expose what we’re able to admit.
Be there. If you dare.
